


For the Love of god

by Mosca



Series: Loopholes [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 07, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Gratuitous use of John Donne, M/M, Pagan Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1831957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate season 7, Cas falls through a loophole in the universe and comes back as – well, Sam has a theory, and Dean's willing to take some magic for the team to keep him powerful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Love of god

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of sketches for an alternate season 7 that diverges after "Death's Door." I might gradually finish; I might never touch it again after I post what I have. It'll probably fall somewhere in between. 
> 
> Sapience pestered me until I pulled this out of the fic drawer and then beta read.
> 
> The capitalization pattern in the title is intentional.
> 
> Warnings/content notes at the end.

Dean hadn't prayed since Cas had died. He knew that someone would hear him if he did, and that was what he was afraid of. He didn't want to find out who'd show up if he called, especially with Heaven still full of dicks trying to out-dick each other to death. It might attract unwanted attention from Hell, too, or from the innumerable podunk pagan gods who seemed to be gaining strength from all the chaos. Prayer was a plea for attention, a demand for the celestial spotlight, and Dean wanted to be left alone to drink himself to death in peace.

He refilled Bobby's flask with bottom-shelf whiskey, only to have it slip through his fingers and spill all over the motel carpet. A chill ran down Dean's spine like it was proud to be a ghost-story cliché. Bobby was making it clear that he thought haunting Dean was hilarious. The specific message was fuzzier, though: either Bobby thought Dean had drunk enough for tonight, or he didn't want Dean to wreck his liver on the cheap stuff. The second one sounded more like Bobby. Dean topped off the flask with Jack Daniels, then went to the bathroom for some towels to soak up the mess.

Sam was out on a job. Alone, because he'd declared Dean too drunk and depressed to be useful. He'd probably meant it as an ultimatum or an intervention, but Dean had expressed the exact number of craps he gave as Sam had eyerolled out the door.

Dean set the flask down on the nightstand. It contained the last shred of Bobby's DNA, and if he burned it, Bobby would be gone forever. He'd been sleeping with it like a teddy bear some nights. Sooner or later, Bobby would turn poltergeist, but until then, Dean was going to cling like hell. "I miss you," Dean said out loud, and the lights flickered gently as he felt a brief, icy hug around his shoulders.

"I miss everyone," he shouted at the walls. "Screw you all for leaving. Especially you, Cas. Remember the days when you came when I called? You're supposed to be freaking _immortal_ , and even you managed to die. Bobby and Dad and Ellen and whatever, them, I understand, but you. You're supposed to come flapping in when I pray to you. You're supposed to _come back._ "

The empty room seemed full of sounds beyond Dean's range of hearing. Hastily, he added, "Just in general. I'm not actually asking for divine help. I hope you're out there, is all I'm saying."

He heard a rustle of feathers, and a warm draft brought the smell of ketchup and Diesel fuel. That was new: usually, Cas just snuck up and scared the crap out of him. Maybe this was Cas's way of showing manners.

"I'd been waiting to hear from you," Cas said behind him.

"You could have just, you know, appeared," Dean said. "If it was that important."

Cas furrowed his brow the way he did when Dean made assumptions that were obviously wrong according to angel logic.

"Or... you needed me to summon you?"

"There are some new rules now that I'm no longer an angel," Cas said.

"You're human?" Dean knew that was a stupid guess the moment it came out of his mouth.

"No. I still have my angelic abilities, but I'm locked out of Heaven. I've been walking the earth for several months now, trying to figure out what I am."

Dean looked him over. He was in as good of shape as Dean had seen him: clean-shaven and neatly combed, eyes bright and posture straight. Even his trenchcoat seemed fresh from a trip to the dry cleaner. "You look pretty good for someone who's been wandering the earth."

"The congregations have been very kind," Cas said.

"Congregations of what?"

"Churches, campus ministries, nonprofit agencies. Occasionally an individual, but the groups are easier to hear." Cas sounded like he was unsure of this despite knowing it in his bones. "They summon me, and I come to them. Usually by Greyhound bus. My teleportation powers are limited to a few miles, except – except for you, it seems."

"So they... pray to you? And you show up?" Dean suspected he should be taking notes for Sam, especially considering how fast he was slaughtering his brain cells lately. 

"Yes."

"And you, what? Perform miracles? Smite the wicked?"

"In most cases, I assist them with a charitable enterprise," Cas said. "Often, it's something simple, like a soup kitchen or a free health clinic. In Denver, we escorted women past protesters at a Planned Parenthood. I spent over a month in the Bronx setting up a shelter for homeless transgender youth."

"Seriously?" Dean was certain of some malevolent angle, but it was getting harder and harder to pin down. "You show up and do nice things for people?"

"Not _nice_ things," Cas said. "Good things."

"Okay. _Good_ things." Dean considered this, running his thumb over the etched surface of Bobby's flask. "And then you leave." 

"No. When we've accomplished our task, we celebrate. A barbecue or a potluck picnic. There was a beer tasting and Bible study in Portland that you would have ridiculed mercilessly."

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Dean said. "You go to a church in some town."

"Large urban areas, mostly," Cas interrupted.

"Okay. In some city. You do a good deed, you throw a party. And then it's on to the next, for months, without knowing why."

"Yes," Cas said. "And each time, I leave stronger than I arrived."

"Hold that thought," Dean said. His suspicions were definitely wrong, but he needed Sam to talk him down from his dumbass notions. When Sam answered his phone, Dean said, "Sammy, I need you back. We have a Castiel situation."

"Dean, I am _this close_ to ganking this wendigo," Sam said.

"Screw the wendigo. Cas is back."

"Dean, with the state you're in lately -" Sam sighed. "You don't get to tell me to screw the wendigo."

"Maybe I don't," Dean said, "but Cas does, doesn't he? After all the times he dropped everything for us?"

Sam failed to launch a witty comeback, and Dean knew he'd won this round.

Dean was somewhat surprised to see that Castiel had not disappeared in a fit of impatience. He'd hung his trenchcoat over the back of the desk chair and was reading a creased paperback copy of _Siddhartha._ Instead of disturbing him, Dean took a swig from Bobby's flask.

*

A girl in Atlanta had given Castiel the book. It had been one of his first congregations, when he'd known his purpose – ministry, a mitzvah, festivities – and little else. After his second cheeseburger and his third Bud Light, he'd remembered yanking Dean's soul out of Hell and had needed a moment to himself. The girl had come up to him to see if he was okay. "What's next?" she'd asked. "I assume you're not staying here now that the domestic violence hotline is up and running."

"I'll get on a bus in the morning," Cas had said.

"To where?"

Cas had shut his eyes and listened for a prayer. "Oklahoma City," he'd decided.

She'd opened her handbag and given him a book. "So you don't get bored on the way."

The next evening, eating a Big Mac at a rest stop in northern Louisiana, Cas had realized that she would have had sex with him. But he hadn't desired her sexually, and has mind had been on Dean. In reality, when he'd rescued Dean from Hell, Dean had been delirious with violent suffering and had not known Cas by name. When Cas pictured the event, however, he saw it not as it had been but as it should have been, Dean's eyes crinkling into a grateful smile, his hand slipping from Cas's grasp as he re-entered the world.

Cas hadn't read the book on any of his trips. He'd learned the pleasures of staring at scenery and falling asleep to the hum of a bus engine. A youth pastor in Oakland had given Castiel a used mp3 player, a repository of wonder. Cas had downloaded Led Zeppelin and AC/DC because Dean liked them, but his own tastes gravitated toward Donna Summer and Katy Perry.

When the buses were more crowded, Cas took out his headphones and talked with his neighbors. For most, the comfort of his friendship was a blessing: a woman returning to her hometown to care for her dying mother, a man moving to a strange city for a new job that would pay less than the one he'd been laid off from, a high school kid shuttling between divorced parents. He'd had sex with one fellow passenger, a man putting distance between himself and an ugly divorce; a new and pleasurable experience for them both, and a greater boost to Castiel's strength than hamburgers or goodwill.

Now, waiting in a motel room in Bemidji, Minnesota, while Dean and Sam conferred in the bathroom, Castiel felt bored for the first time since he'd returned to earth. _Siddhartha_ was diverting enough, although he'd have enjoyed it more as a musical.

Sam emerged from the bathroom first, radiating the satisfaction that discovery brought him. Sam loved knowledge in a way that Castiel admired because he could not understand it. Sam clapped his hands together. "Well, the good news is, we think we've figured out what you are."

Castiel tucked a bookmark into his book. It was a strip of blue laminated cardboard with "JUBILATE!" printed on one side in large silver letters and the schedule for the Austin Metro Community Church's Bible study groups on the back. He'd amassed a significant collection of items like this – flyers, bumper stickers, fridge magnets – picking them up unthinkingly from tables in church lobbies and only noticing them as he packed his bag to head for his next city. He could not compel himself to discard them.

"So there is bad news, too," Cas said.

The brothers started to talk at the same time, with Sam winning out on the basis of being sober enough to construct a full sentence. "That depends on your point of view. You're, well..." Sam's voice cracked and rose. "You're a god."

"I've proven dramatically that is not the case," Cas said.

"Not _God_ god," Dean jumped in. " _A_ god. Lower case."

"But there _is_ no god but God," Cas said.

"Of course there are," Sam said. "Hundreds of 'em, all over the world, created by faith and sustained by worship."

"False gods," Cas said.

"Maybe so," Sam said, "but they exist. I mean, listen. When you went on your wrath spree, you made international news. For millions of people, your face is the face of God."

"And a lot of 'em would rather believe in you than in the old bearded guy who hasn't made a guest appearance since Deuteronomy," Dean added.

"Idolators." Cas rose, dropping his book to clench his fist. "I have to stop them. I have to explain." He tried to teleport to the bus station, but the shock had taken too much out of him.

Dean cocked his head sideways. "Are you stuck?"

"I could use a meal," Cas admitted. "Cheeseburgers and beer, if possible."

Sam reached for something in his jacket pocket: a shaker of salt, perhaps, or a bottle of oil to fuel holy fire. A spill in the shelter kitchen in the Bronx had proven that Cas could cross a salt line, and with his heavenly connection severed, he suspected holy fire could burn him but not imprison him. "If I am what you believe me to be," Cas said, "then nothing you have will protect you."

"But we can weaken you," Sam said through gritted teeth. As much as Sam's hostility grieved Cas, he understood it; Sam's track record with powerful beings would have given Cas pause, too.

"By refusing to buy him dinner?" Dean's trust, his ironic optimism, comforted Cas.

"It's tribute," Sam said. "Some gods demand virgin sacrifices. Cas asks for... pretty much what you would, Dean, which isn't a factor I want to think too much about. Maybe we should buy him some porn, too?"

"That hasn't been effective so far," Cas said.

"Come on, Sam, it's _Cas,_ " Dean said.

"That's all right," Cas said. "I have enough money for a bus ticket back to Cincinnati. It was good to see you both again."

"Don't." Dean's single word filled the room.

"If I require tribute, then I can refuse it," Cas said. "And then maybe I'll fade away, and there will be one less false god in the world."

Sam's contempt faded into compassion. Perhaps it wasn't the power itself that he feared. "Doubtful. You'll keep existing as long as people believe in you. You'd get weaker, but it'd take you a very long time to die."

"Face it, buddy, you're an affront to your Creator," Dean said. "Let's go get a sandwich."

"He's not my Creator anymore," Cas muttered as he put on his coat. If the Winchesters heard him, they did him the kindness of not responding.

*

After dinner, Dean let Sam go bag his precious wendigo, and he was alone with Cas again. "So I guess you're off to Cincinnati," Dean said outside the motel, hands in his pockets.

"I missed the last bus of the night. I'll have to wait until morning."

Dean glanced up at the VACANCY sign glowing over their heads. "We'll get you a room."

"I only sleep on the bus," Cas said.

"So you're just going to wander around Bemidji until the bus comes?"

"You prayed for my company," Cas said. "And you don't sleep, either."

"I get a couple hours of bad dreams a night before I give up," Dean said. He waited for Cas to jump in, but Cas was infinitely, irritatingly patient. "So you might as well keep me company."

Cas followed Dean up to the motel room, still saying nothing. He needed some lessons in providing comfort. Dean reached reflexively for the whiskey bottle when he entered the room but felt Cas's eyes on him. "I know. I know I've had enough."

"I no longer judge that kind of thing," Cas said. "Hypocrisy, irrational hatred, selfishness – they literally make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up." He rubbed his neck as if remembering the sensation brought back the itch. "I feel it in my body. I never used to. Not without a powerful evil like Famine or Lucifer. But now, I get hungry. And lonely. And... horny."

This was turning into a story that Dean wanted to hear. He filled a plastic cup with Jack Daniels. It wasn't a story he wanted Bobby listening in on. "Welcome to the world."

"Thank you," Cas said earnestly.

"So. Sex. Same effect as the cheeseburgers?"

"Multiplied by a factor of ten." Cas's naïve, unashamed honesty was definitely a virtue, or at least a source of entertainment.

Dean remembered how hard it had been to get Cas inside a brothel the last time he'd tried to get Cas laid. This was not the same Castiel, though. "You're speaking from experience. Obviously."

"Several church members," Cas said, "and one fellow bus passenger. In the men's room of a rest area."

Dean was about to ask how Cas had gotten a girl into a rest stop men's room without getting nabbed by security. Mostly he was looking for tips – he'd never succeeded, himself. Security guards that appeared to be unconscious would pounce like pumas if they suspected prostitution. But no one would bat an eye at two men from the same bus using the facilities at the same time. "So were they all guys? Or have you sampled a little of everything?"

"I seem to have inherited all of my earthly desires from Jimmy Novak," Cas non-answered. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Jimmy was attracted to men," Cas said. "He married a woman because he believed that God disapproved of him. He was misguided, but it came from a good place. He did love her, in his way."

"And those sweet young men at the church, I bet you loved them, too," Dean said, more admiring than judgmental. In the booze-soaked moment, Dean loved most of his own one-night stands.

"In a way," Cas said. "But not like I love you."

If Dean had been holding anything, he would have dropped it.

"I realized it when you prayed for me," Cas said, "and I was willing to ignore my calling to keep you company. I'm in love with you." He stated it with the same flat, factual certainty as everything else, as if it were no great admission, only a reflection of the way things were.

Dean took off his jacket and puffed out his chest. "All right. Hit me –"

"I couldn't hurt you," Cas said. "Not only because I don't want to, but because I don't think it's in my nature anymore."

"Would you let me finish my damn sentence?" Dean was mostly frustrated that Cas was giving him time to lose his nerve. "Hit me with whatever divine mojo will make me love you back."

"You prefer women," Cas said.

"So change that." 

"I don't know if I can," Cas said.

"Of course you can," Dean said. "You're a goddamned god."

For a long moment, Cas sat looking at his hands as if bereaved, but then his eyes lit, inspired. He got up and gave Dean a wet, awkward, hairy kiss. Dean tried to pull away, to protest that the mojo hadn't taken, but Cas grabbed him by his hair and kissed harder, with sloppy and inexperienced tongue. But it wasn't terrible. Dean had enjoyed his share of bad kissers, and this one was getting better. Cas's lips felt warmer and drier now, and he seemed to have figured out how to breathe and kiss at the same time. Even the stubble wasn't so bad, kind of a new textural experience.

Dean turned his head to the side to kiss Cas's rough jaw. Cas pushed Dean back into place with the flat of his hand, forcing their lips to touch. "Relax," Dean said. "It's working. It worked."

"You need a little more." Cas's breathlessness made his voice even huskier than usual.

"I like it, okay? I'm good."

Cas put his hand on Dean's chest, rubbing his fingers over the fabric of Dean's shirt. "You don't want to burn for me a little?"

Dean thought about the question seriously. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be remembering Famine, everyone else going mad with desire while his urges remained untouchable. "That's not really how I roll." Not even for Lisa, he realized regretfully. It had been harder to let his comfortable, peaceful life go than to say goodbye to her.

"You asked me to change you," Cas said.

"So I guess I should let you." Dean let Cas turn his head and tilt his chin, allowed lips and tongue all over again. He resisted the list of other things he wanted to do to Cas, a list that was getting longer, more detailed, and more crucial to his existence by the moment. He settled for both hands on Cas's butt, the only item on his list he could reach. The kiss was really going to his cock now, not just giving him one hell of a frustrated make-out boner – and it was definitely doing that – but making him need to know what Cas's mouth would feel like wrapped around it. Making him want to shove Cas to his knees and force Cas to satisfy the curiosity.

Dean didn't like violence in his sex. He pulled away, this time with conviction. "It's enough, okay? Any more, and we go into deranged nymphomaniac stalker territory."

"Is that a bad territory?" Cas almost seemed to be making a dry joke. It wasn't the first time Dean had suspected this since Cas's return. He might have been projecting, but he hoped this version of Cas had a sense of humor. That Cas's followers, like Dean himself, preferred a god who could laugh at the universe.

"It's no place I want to visit," Dean said.

Cas stood sternly expressionless for an awkward fifteen seconds that felt like fifteen minutes. Back to his old self. "You can kiss me safely now."

Dean had no interest in another kiss, but he didn't want to hurt Cas's feelings. He leaned in but remembered that Cas's feelings didn't work that way. As long as they'd known each other, Cas had complained about Dean's unconscious deceptions and white lies. "How about I blow you instead?"

Cas took off his belt while Dean peeled out of his shirt. When Dean looked next, though, Cas was digging for something in his coat pocket. He placed a wrapped condom in Dean's hand. "I ministered to AIDS patients in Miami, and their condition broke my heart," Cas said. "Also, I don't know how my semen will affect you."

"Worried it works like demon blood?" The way the universe worked, god spunk _would_ be the holy mirror image of demon blood.

"That, or miraculous offspring," Cas said. "Either way, I'd prefer to take precautions."

They didn't try anything fancy. Cas sat on the bed, and Dean knelt on the floor as if receiving a blessing. Dean had been on the other side of this equation enough times to feel a surprising surge of confidence. He wrapped a firm hand around the base of Cas's cock, took a deep and fatalistic breath, and lowered his open mouth down.

It tasted okay. He didn't gag. Once he got into it, it was kind of fun. Not as much of a creative accomplishment as eating out a girl, but not as tiring. And satisfying for the exact same reason, because Cas was going crazy under him. Nobody had taught Cas to be a quiet lover. Dean would explain to him about thin motel room walls one day, if the moans ever stopped being hot.

Dean got the condom on just in time, right before Cas really let loose. Cas jerked up so hard when he came, Dean thought he might explode into a burst of white light. But he just shot his load and sank back into the bed, comfortingly normal.

Cas didn't seem like the type to leave a lover hanging, but Dean was way too turned on to take any chances. He climbed onto the bed to lie on top of Cas and kiss him. Cas embraced him and rolled him over so he was staring into Cas's eyes, then at the ceiling. Cas kissed Dean's chest, stroking him through his jeans. "I'm gonna –" Dean gasped.

"You have time." Cas's lips buzzed across Dean's nipple. The words burrowed through his skin and resonated in his ribs while Cas unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them to his knees. Dean recited the lyrics to "Hotel California" in his head, the most surefire way to make himself last, but it wasn't working. The first touch of Cas's tongue had brought him to the edge. He braced himself for embarrassment, but time seemed to freeze in the beautiful moment just before release. Except that Cas was still all over Dean's cock, and he was still bucking his hips, just short of climax. "Does this mean I'm not going to come until you want me to?" he tried to ask, but the words tangled up in a cry of pleasure, and Cas's mouth was full anyway.

Dean stopped resisting and gave himself over to an eternal almost-there. If he died hard and happy, that would be awesome. Cas didn't seem to be tiring out.

And then, just as the pleasure began to feel stale, Dean came. When the room stopped spinning, he saw Cas at his feet, taking his shoes off of him. "You can sleep if you want," Cas was saying. "I can stay with you."

For the first time in weeks, Dean believed he could dream of nothing but blow jobs and cheeseburgers. He kicked free of his jeans while Cas finished undressing. Cas joined him under the thin motel covers, and Dean fell asleep with his head bowed against Cas's chest, Cas's lips in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains plot-central canon character death, irresponsible drinking, representations of religion that might not sit well with some readers, and fully consensual Waking Up Gay.


End file.
